Maggie Queeney

Instep Re-Treaded

I shine shoes, the toe molded to mirror
the slick lens of my eye, to hope they will distort
today over new surface. I owe them. They carry
the world in big flat pieces, they carry
my tender instep, the eyelets
burst out and strung up. All the stretching
these stitches held out against—
                                                even in the Midwest we rock
back and forth—reach out or keep hands
side-drawn, remind ourselves to ignore
the tightening thread of sirens, to keep
eyes on the horizon, ever west-ward, to tell
that nothing ever ends. The pacific ocean doesn’t

exist. To walk through this—furious
non-movements—these frozen
chances humming the side of the road, I
pretend it’s not summer, I do not sweat. There
are no bowels inside me, no voice,
no throb to count every other step.

We are our own trackers. Reduce all
to this print, the depression of the heel,
a deep well that pools, and I will prove
this cliff is not an edge, a falling-off place. I will
roll scales and gills back into my body,
slip to the bottom sand-choked and blazing.